


Un visage du passé

by thesignsofserbia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, John's blog, Lonely Sherlock, M/M, Moriarty is Dead, Old Friends, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining Sherlock, Post-His Last Vow, Post-Series, Scars, Sherlock Loves John, Sherlock is Not a Virgin, Sherlock's Past, University, Viclock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:32:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4046071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesignsofserbia/pseuds/thesignsofserbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor liked to cause trouble. He could be more of an arsehole than Sherlock if he was feeling in a particularly vitriolic mood. He was not the type of person John tolerated well, and leaving them alone together would not be a wise move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Un visage du passé

 

 

 

Victor Trevor is a wild card, and him being here now John was back was likely going to be a problem.

  
It wasn’t that Victor wasn’t easy to get along with because he was, but only when he wanted to be. Victor liked to cause trouble. He could be more of an arsehole than Sherlock if he was feeling in a particularly vitriolic mood. He was not the type of person John tolerated well, and leaving them alone together would not be a wise move.

  
John had turned up unexpectedly in the middle of the night with a rather large bag from the sounds of it, more than an overnight one definitely, and Sherlock wonders if he’s moving back in for good.

  
Perhaps he and Mary have had a fight and he’ll go back home tomorrow or in a few days with an apology and they’ll patch it up. Maybe John’s conscious can’t do it anymore, living with her knowing what she was; what she is.

  
Maybe he’s realised that hasn’t forgiven her completely and likely never will. Perhaps he knows he can’t and he’s just keeping up appearances. If that’s not going to cause tension in a household then nothing will and that’s no way to spend the rest of one’s life; avoiding the subject, passive aggressive silences, veiled anger, pretending like everything’s fine but always on the precipice of an argument of profound proportions. No, they’d grow to hate each other.

  
Not knowing could be simply too much, it must be killing him. He honestly never did read that memory stick (but Sherlock has), John has no idea who she is or what she’s done apart from the general summary they gave him that night at Lennister Gardens.

  
Sherlock personally couldn’t do it; the curiosity would eat him alive. But he and John are very different people, because even knowing the truth he _has_ forgiven Mary and no matter what he says; Sherlock doesn’t believe John’s quite there yet.

  
Maybe it’s amicable. Maybe she’s dead (although he thinks John would have told him already if she was). Maybe she got bored. Maybe she left him, vanishing into the night.

  
Maybe John’s realised he’s in love with Sherlock and always has been.

  
Maybe Sherlock’s projecting.

  
Who knows?

 

~

 

  
It’s Victor who first notices, they’re lounging in bed and Sherlock is only half awake.

  
“Pretty sure you’re being burgled,” he throws the information out there like he couldn’t care less. He probably couldn’t.

  
Sherlock listens with his head cocked;

  
“No,” he concludes, “It’s just my flatmate.”

  
He recognises John’s tread instantly; his gait, the even length of his paces (left over from his time in the army), the confident way he walks without trying to be quiet. The way he distributes his weight is unique and varies depending on his leg and therefore his emotional state.

  
John’s upset.

  
“You don’t have a flatmate,” Victor points out in amusement.

  
“No, I suppose you’re right,” Sherlock ponders enigmatically, “I guess I don’t,” before rolling back on top of Victor with a glint in his eye.

 

~

 

All that Victor and Sherlock had ever really done together was smoke, shag, and snort cocaine.

  
That was in the beginning, when Sherlock was still just flirting with benzoylmethylecgonine. Victor never injected and it was him who’d first introduced Sherlock to drugs although he’d considered experimenting with illicit substances several times previously.

  
He’d never apologised for what later happened to Sherlock and Sherlock would never have expected him to. They never apologised for anything and that suited him just fine. Victor had not been at fault, he’d made his own decisions and he’d suffered the consequences. It was his responsibility.

  
Victor never intended Sherlock to get hooked on the stuff; he knew that, he didn’t need to be told.

  
Mycroft blamed him though; he loathed Victor for ‘corrupting’ him which was petty and Sherlock found it frankly disrespectful. Mycroft never had stopped seeing him as his sensitive baby brother, which was utter bollocks and had been since he turned 6 years old. Mycroft’s disapproval meant exactly squat; it made no different to him what a ‘bad influence’ Victor was, not to mention Sherlock was probably just as poor a choice of friend.

  
But Sherlock had had to coerce his brother into just leaving Victor alone, his brother would be livid if he knew they were even in _contact_ , and that Victor was not only in town but also in Sherlock’s bed.

  
Sherlock smirked just imagining the look on Mycroft’s face; narcissistic judgemental bastard that he was.

  
No; Victor had never wanted Sherlock to take the coke thing too far.

  
All Victor Trevor had ever wanted was Sherlock Holmes.

  
Victor found Sherlock captivating and had often referred to him as his muse, which was neither here nor there, and he wasn’t put off by Sherlock’s sharp tongue, general eccentricities and unpleasantness, not one bit. He also thought Sherlock was incredibly sexy.

  
Sherlock in turn found Victor’s company thoroughly enjoyable, if turbulent. He had a wicked and droll sense of humour that made Sherlock laugh and he was extremely quick witted.

  
They weren’t what you’d call good for each other, some might say it was unhealthy, but neither of them gave a shit about that.

 

~

 

They met at University.

  
Victor was doing a double major in Literature and Finance at Cambridge, although his real passion was drawing and painting. He was only reading finance to appease his father who wanted him to take over the family business, which was something to do with stock broking that Sherlock didn’t care about.

  
He was a blatant stereotype of an art student on the surface; a daydreamer, an artist with a love of poetry, everything about him was enticing; magnetic, you felt his presence when he walked into a room. He was always sketching (usually Sherlock) and occasionally he painted with Sherlock as a human canvas; the brush delicately licking at his skin as Victor growled at him not to move.

  
Victor was a very talented artist if one cared for such things.

  
His poetry was torment, truly awful.

  
But he wasn’t an idiot. He was the perfect distraction.

  
What other people didn’t see about Victor was that he could be just as acidic as Sherlock, if not as outwardly prickly. Victor was a real people person, he was one of the most extroverted people that Sherlock had ever met which should have been loud and grating; but it wasn’t. He was charming and popular, visually stunning, but he was just as critical of people internally.

  
They only met because Victor’s stepmother’s bad tempered little demon of a dog (which he had been forced to look after while she was away) latched itself onto Sherlock’s ankle and wouldn’t let go even when he shook his leg so hard it was lifted off the ground. Damn thing was vicious.

  
He still had the scar.

  
The ever gallant Victor insisted on helping Sherlock to the nurse and then to his dorm, though he was quite capable of managing on his own and had said as much; multiple times.

  
Victor never missed social cues, but he didn’t seem to get the hint.

  
Victor took all of Sherlock’s coldness and efforts to repel him in his stride, brushing them off with a winning smile. This was baffling and he’d been more than a bit annoyed at Victor’s persistence. Sherlock didn’t know how to respond when he withstood Sherlock’s most cutting of deductions with interest; he didn’t react with resentment or violence like the rest of their peers. His response was more subdued;

  
Victor Trevor was impressed.

  
He was a social creature, and had to have known who Sherlock was, by reputation alone; the campus freak who haunted the fourth floor chem lab like a not-so-friendly ghoul. Sherlock Holmes who was ‘the prettiest thing’ but wasn’t interested in anyone. He’d bruised more than a few egos during his time at uni…and in the rest of his life.

  
Victor didn’t take idle gossip and hearsay as the gospel truth though, and preferred to form his own opinions of people, which was an admirable quality.

  
After the Chihuahua incident, sometimes when Victor was walking around campus surrounded by his entourage (who were really more admirers than friends, one of whom was Sebastian Wilkes, always desperate for the other boy’s attention, clinging to him like the parasite he was) if he saw Sherlock, Victor would leave them to stare in confusion as he’d flop down to talk to him.

  
Victor was conventionally very good looking with broad shoulders, light hair that was messy by design and pleasingly symmetrical features, complimented by a strong jaw. His hazel eyes were bright and quick. Half of the people on campus wanted to shag him regardless of sex, and many of them had done.

  
And so the most sought-after man on campus began hanging around the most avoided.

  
At first it was exceptionally irritating, he’d turn up in Sherlock’s lectures, the library, the halls, when Sherlock was smoking out around the back of the cadaver labs where he’d thought no one would find him, leaning against the wall in the corridor outside Sherlock’s dorm room. To make a change, he didn’t seem to want anything specific from Sherlock (which was the reason most people tried to approach him) and occasionally he was just _there_ , he didn’t always say anything at all.

  
Eventually Sherlock grudgingly admitted that he didn’t mind this boy and just accepted his constant presence in his life, it was an easy sort of companionship.

  
The course work at uni was monotonous and elementary in nature, he’d become very bored of it very quickly, Victor threw a cat amongst the pigeons just by walking into his life and although Sherlock tried very hard not to like him (he failed miserably) he turned out to be a most welcome addition.

  
They didn’t have to be doing anything which was the best part, it wasn’t taxing and it didn’t require any effort on his part, Sherlock might be reading in his dorm room (Mycroft got him a single room) and Victor would just be lounging about, drawing, reading, writing. Sometimes he just lay there and quietly watched Sherlock.

  
Victor tried dragging Sherlock out to parties and bars on several occasions but Sherlock was always sullen and when Victor saw that he really did hate it he stopped immediately.

  
When Sherlock discovered coke it was a eureka moment, his brain moved up about 3 gears. It enhanced everything. The world sped up to his level at last and the elation was like nothing he’d ever known. Cocaine was glorious, he formed so many new ideas, there was so much that his eyes had been opened to, so much he could do, see and accomplish, the endless possibilities of the world were revealed to him.

  
Victor seemed to abandon all of his followers or groupies or whatever they were in preference of Sherlock which seemed an odd move, and people stared at them when they were together (which they practically always were). Victor preened at every glance and whisper, which Sherlock thought was odd and called him an attention whore. Victor _wanted_ to be seen with him.

  
Sherlock conducted experiments and explained the steps as he went along, Victor leaning over his shoulder in curiosity. They got stoned in Victor’s room, doing nothing for hours, Sherlock played his violin when he was thinking and Victor was captivated. Sherlock chain-smoked his way through his black periods without acknowledging anything, Victor leaning against him despondently.

  
They did line after line of cocaine off of Sherlock’s desk, regardless of the time of day, racing each other around campus in the middle of the night, running along rooftops; euphoric from the high.

  
Victor recited his own poetry until Sherlock threw things at him and told him to shut him the fuck up.

  
“Fuck of Holmes, everyone else likes it, especially the ones about you, they think they’re beautiful,” Victor taunts.

  
“Stop writing that awful shit about me.” Sherlock was too sober for this.

  
“You’ll see Holmes, one day it’ll be taught in classrooms and your kids will learn it.”

  
“Another reason not to have kids, why the fuck are you calling me that?”

  
“To see if it annoys you. Very effective.”

  
“I hate you.”

  
“Oh my darling, I know.” Victor blew him a kiss.

  
It was a miracle either of them graduated, no matter how easy the work was. Sherlock couldn’t recall Victor ever actually attending a class.

  
It dawned on Sherlock after about 4 months of this that Victor had considered them to have been in a romantic relationship for quite some time. This was quite unexpected and he had a lot of deliberating to do.

  
But Sherlock _liked_ Victor and he didn’t want to lose his only friend, more than that though…he was _interested_. Victor wasn’t clingy or needy, and surprisingly (considering he thought they were together) he hadn’t come onto Sherlock even once, he’d demanded nothing of Sherlock but his company which was refreshing and Sherlock found himself actually quite pleased by this development. Victor was an excellent partner.

  
Sex with Victor turned out to be magnificently dynamic. Sherlock had briefly experimented with intercourse before with both sexes but had been underwhelmed by it and thus had little to no experience to show for it. The experiments _had_ confirmed something definitively, which he’d already known; he preferred men, very much so.

  
Victor introduced him to so much, waking up his libido with a vengeance and he became insatiable. They couldn’t keep their hands off of one another, not that they bothered to try. When he was in Victor, (and, even better) when Victor was in _him_ the outside world ceased to matter.

  
They’d skip classes to fuck, spend whole afternoons in bed lazily touching each other between rounds. He’d tie Victor up and torture him with sensory deprivation and desire for hours until he cried with relief when Sherlock let him come. It was rough and it was wild, it was slow and agonising, it was heart poundingly fast and very occasionally tender. Sometimes it hurt, and it was _wonderful_.

  
They’d resolve shouting matches with Victor pounding Sherlock into the mattress, pulling painfully on Sherlock’s curls, Sherlock would shut him up when he was dull (or reading that blasted poetry) by sucking him off or shoving his own cock down Victors throat.

  
Victor would stop the world being insipid and colourless when boredom was driving him mad, by making him crazy with want instead.

  
It was a constant battle of a relationship. It was hot, fast paced and intense. They’d get higher than they ever had before. They’d argue and scream at each other until they were hoarse and the next day it would be as if nothing had happened.

  
It was casual but glorious and the furthest thing from boring he’d ever known.

  
That was, until Victor took Sherlock to meet his father at the family estate while they were on a break between semesters.

  
They spent hours exploring the catacombs and the grounds of the old house, Sherlock was fascinated by the beehives and Victor was fascinated by Sherlock.

  
When Mr Trevor senior arrived Victor was pleased; he enjoyed showing Sherlock off and his father took a shine to him, very much so, against all odds. The man was as easy going and hospitable as his son.

  
But one night he asked Sherlock to showcase his deductive reasoning that Victor had boasted about.

  
And everything fell apart.

  
As it turned out, Mr Trevor had rather a lot of skeletons in his closet that he hadn’t wanted the world to find out about, least of all his only son. Especially the fact that he was terminally ill.

  
Pancreatic cancer.

  
Sherlock had never had much restraint in sharing his deductions, but this time his showing off cost him a lot more than the usual blood nose.

  
Sherlock cared very much about Victor, more than he had about anyone else in his life to date, but Victor had been extremely upset and he’d had no idea how to undo his mistake. He was angry and blamed Sherlock, though it was hardly his fault Victor’s father was dying.

  
They didn’t do this sort of thing, this emotional fallout, and stakes were abnormally high. Victor dropped a bombshell;

  
“Do you love me Will?”

  
That hadn’t been a question he’s been _ever_ expecting Victor to ask him, and now of all times? When he received no response his expression turned ugly, his anger channelled itself at Sherlock, gathering momentum.

  
“You don’t care about me at all, do you?” He was almost shouting, “You don’t care about anything and you never will because you can’t. They were right about you, you know?”

  
The situation was fast getting out of hand, usually he’d shut him up with a kiss and they’d fuck and everything would be solved, but even he knew that wasn’t going to cut it this time. Sherlock could see how all of this was going to end but was powerless to stop it, he was sitting in the back seat of a car involved in a head on collision; he had no access to the brakes.

  
“You really are a sociopath. Can you even feel love at all?”

  
Sherlock didn’t understand. Usually when they fought their words were harsh but easy to brush off. This time wasn’t like that at all, they were never usually cruel, or if they were they didn’t mean it.

  
But Victor was being deliberately cruel, and he meant every word.

  
“I don’t know,” was all Sherlock had managed to get out.

  
He didn’t know if he loved Victor, he _might_ do, but he wasn’t sure. Normal people go around claiming to be in love left, right, and centre without having a clue and it was fickle and deplorable. Sherlock doesn’t know that he even really knows what love _is_. Without precedent how could he ever be certain? And maybe’s weren’t good enough.

  
He wasn’t going to lie to Victor.

  
“I guess it’s my fault then,” Victor had said but his tone was nasty and screamed the opposite. He’d then sneered at him;

  
“I should have known that a machine like you could never love me back.”

  
Victor loved him.

  
That hit home. Sherlock had been unaware of this fact until that very second, he’d not expected it, hadn’t even thought about the possibility.

  
(John had later reached the same conclusion and had echoed Victor’s statement referring to Sherlock as a machine. Everyone eventually leaves.)

  
The next day the driver had come to collect him and he’d been taken back to Cambridge without a word.

  
He’d not seen Victor Trevor again.

 

~

 

A week ago he’d just turned up, unapologetic, on Sherlock’s doorstep with a duffle bag and that same lop-sided grin which always promised mischief. As if nothing had changed.

  
The dragon that was Moriarty had _finally_ been vanquished and laid to rest. Sherlock had been pardoned quietly and he wasn’t going to be sent off; exiled to certain death in the part of the world that now terrified him.

  
John was still living in domestic bliss with his attempted murderer.

  
The two of them hadn’t exchanged a word since uni and Sherlock had read in the papers that Victor’s father had passed just 3 months after Sherlock’s revelation.

  
Sherlock couldn’t think of a single reason to turn him away.

 

~

 

“Will,” Sherlock tensed angrily; _how many times_?

  
“Sorry. Sherlock?” Better.

  
He hummed absently in response, Sherlock was draped across him at an odd angle, cheek resting on the underside of his ribcage, tracing the structural formula of nicotine onto Victor’s hip.

  
“I’m sorry but I have to ask; what happened?”

  
Sherlock sighs. He’d been expecting this conversation but had hoped to avoid it, they didn’t do this; stop to talk, to explain. They just accepted the way things were silently and moved on. The lack of any serious conversations had been a big contributing factor to them having maintained a relationship of sorts for a full two years.

  
The scars on Sherlock’s back were clearly disturbing Victor though, the evidence of how much had changed and he’d ignored them for as long as he could. Sherlock had known logically that he’d have to have this conversation with _someone_ at some point; he couldn’t just ignore everything that had happened to him forever.

  
He sighs again, oh well, better get it over with. He composes himself.

  
“You know of Jim Moriarty I assume?” His voice sounds unaffected, lofty even.

  
Victor nods.

  
“Yeah, I missed the funeral, you bastard. I was out of town and no one told me until it was too late.”

  
He’s hurt.

  
Sherlock pauses for a moment at the emotion in Victor’s voice and feels a twinge of guilt. He’d never thought about how Victor would react to his suicide or considered that it might have been painful for him. The two parts of his life had never overlapped. He’d barely thought about the other man at all in nearly a decade.

  
“I spent some time tracking down his people after my…greatly exaggerated demise,” he drawls the last part, “They took exception to me and…I wasn’t always quick enough.”

  
There’s no need to get into specifics, his skin tells enough of the story, as Victor traces the marks they left on his back. He’s an intelligent man, he knows what happened.

  
“Few people don’t,” Victor mutters and Sherlock smirks as the mood lightens fractionally, pleased that Victor’s not going to press him for details.

  
“What about this?” Victor enquires quietly, shifting out from under him so they were facing each other.

  
He places two fingers gently over Sherlock’s left bicep; where, just above his heart there is a tattoo, about 7cm long that reads;

   
 **DECEASED**  
  


“What’s that about?” Victor is being too careful and Sherlock doesn’t like that; he’s not fragile, he’s not going to shatter.

  
“It was a reminder,” a beat passes, “I like the irony.”

  
“A Memento Mori, Sherlock? Really? You?” Victor scoffs in disbelief.

  
The tattoo had acted as a warning, he’d gotten it done on a whim in Budapest, it reminded him why he was doing what he was doing, and to persist and not lose focus, so he wouldn’t lose sight of how important his crusade was. Of what was at stake…

  
Sherlock hadn’t expected to survive those two years. He’d hoped he would, he’d made plans of what he’d do when he got back. He had to keep himself sane somehow. But he’d always known that the odds were heavily stacked against him.

  
He nearly _hadn’t_ made it.

  
But he didn’t regret having had it inked into his skin, it was already carved into his brain, his heart, it was an important part of his life and he didn’t want to forget it. Even though the memories that it now elicited were more painful than motivating.

  
“Does he know?”

  
“Does who know what?” Sherlock counters warily, deliberately obtuse.

  
Victor looks at the ceiling pointedly.

  
“Your not-flatmate. Does he know what you went through for him? John Watson? Yeah that’s right, I read the blog. It’s not like I could pretend you didn’t exist when you’re in the newspapers, on the telly, the whole country was talking about you for God’s sake. You must have hated it.”

  
He shifts, he doesn’t want to talk about John with Victor, and it feels odd that he knows about their life together. Damn John for making that blog, giving any idiot with a computer an insight. Victor’s always been quick and he knows him, the media frenzy, being in the public eye; he _had_ hated it and he still does. He doesn’t need public recognition and fame, he doesn’t want the credit and he certainly doesn’t want people intruding into his life. He just wants the work.

  
He ponders the question, how much he wants to reveal.

  
“Not all of it.”

  
John knows very little of what he was doing while he was away, Molly knows some of it; she helped with a bit of the ongoing treatments he required. But Mycroft is the only one who knows the full story. Victor has learnt more right now than John in months just by looking, though he does have the advantage of seeing Sherlock naked.

  
Sherlock never told him, but then, John never asked.

  
Victor is eyeing him, Sherlock’s sure his face is composed but he suspects that’s not enough. He looks away.

  
“You did it for him. And he has no idea.”

  
“Victor drop it.”

  
“No, I won’t. Because I know you, I know you don’t like to admit it but its true; I do. And you wouldn’t jump off a fucking roof and spend two years god knows where doing god knows what for just anything.”

  
Sherlock opens his mouth to argue, but Victor’s not finished yet; he’s only just begun.

  
“Sure you might have done it all anyway, but not like that.

   
“And this guy has the audacity to be mad at you, to walk around like nothing’s happened? He knows you did it all to save him, you of all people; playing the martyr, it’s all on the blog.

  
“You pulled him out of a fucking fire for christsake and then he calls you a psychopath. The ‘Happily Ever After’ post? What an ungrateful dickhead.”

  
Sherlock frowns and stops to think about it, when he puts it like that…he guesses it does sound sort of bad, but it’s not entirely fair on John.

  
“He doesn’t even think about the possibility that you might have suffered.”

  
“Victor, he thought I was dead for two years.”

  
“No you don’t, don’t you fucking dare try and defend him, not to me. Because so did I yeah? I thought you were dead and I hadn’t even seen you in years, but when I heard you were alive, _I didn’t care_ how you did it, or that you fucked us over, I was just so damn happy you were alive. And see this;”

  
He jabs a finger at the gunshot scar Mary gave him,

  
“And these?”

  
He seizes Sherlock’s left arm roughly and gestures to the still fading track marks decorating it.

  
“They’re both recent, and there’s not a single mention. You started shooting up again, I’m not stupid, I know what that means, and had a fucking hole punched through you. And there’s nothing, nothing after his ‘domestic bliss’.” Victor growls darkly.

  
“Look, it’s really not all that simple.” Sherlock groans, he’s getting a headache.

  
“No, I’m sure it’s not. But the truth is he gets married and ditches you after you’ve literally been carved up and torn to pieces trying to protect the bastard, you relapse and you get _shot_.

  
“When I showed up you should have kicked me to the curb but you didn’t. You look like shit, and you were _relieved_ to see me.

  
“And now, he waltzes into your flat in the middle of the night without asking, makes himself at home and you just call him your _flatmate_ without hesitating? And it’s _me_ that your tight-arse brother hates?”

  
Victor is furious, fuelled by his apparent hatred for John and yes admittedly John hasn’t been the best friend he could be recently but Victor doesn’t even know him, doesn’t see how much John has improved Sherlock’s life, how he’s invaluable to the work, how he makes sure Sherlock eats and sleeps. How much John cares about him, how he saved him.

  
So Sherlock tries to explain, he tells Victor all about John Watson, he covers the cases that are in the blog and he tells him about all the little things that no one knows, how he makes the tea just right, he fusses when he’s sick, how he does the groceries so Sherlock doesn’t have to, how he’ll drop everything and risk getting fired to help with a case, how he puts up with Sherlock’s antics and patches up Sherlock’s wounds when he’s hurt.

  
That he’ll complain about his experiments but he’d never try and put a stop to them definitively, how he slips downstairs at night sometimes and listens to Sherlock playing his violin when he thinks Sherlock doesn’t notice. How he is his partner in crime, his conscience and his conductor of light, he always knows what Sherlock needs, he takes the piss out of Mycroft, and acts as a buffer between Sherlock and the idiots of the world.

  
He recounts everything about Mary and Magnussen and being shot too, because he hasn’t been able to tell anyone else and Victor just listens quietly, riveted.

  
When Sherlock is finished, Victor seems to have had a realisation of sorts.

  
“You’re in love with him.”

  
Sherlock’s head snaps around in alarm because Victor is unexpectedly calling him out on it. But Victor is just smiling at him; pleased. He’s not especially angry anymore and he’s not jealous either.

  
It’s alright, he can say it here, for the first time he can acknowledge that it’s true. He can admit it out loud to Victor, because Victor’s not part of his life here, and he already knows. Sherlock coughs awkwardly.

  
“Yes, yes I think so.” It feels good to say the words after all this time. But he shakes his head;

  
“He’s married Victor.”

  
“But he’s not with his wife. He’s here.”

  
“I’m not going to be his _mistress_ ,” Sherlock spits, “And I won’t be the one to break up John’s marriage.”

  
“I wasn’t suggesting that,” says Victor mildly, playing with Sherlock’s hair.

  
“Mmm, then what _were_ you suggesting?”

  
“That there’s a chance you won’t have to. He loves you too you know, any idiot can see that.”

  
“Perhaps.” John definitely cares about him a great deal, he’s John’s best friend and yes he probably does love Sherlock, but what form that love takes is unclear.

  
“You could just try talking to him about it.” Victor’s teasing him.

  
Sherlock laughs, as if that was ever going to happen; someone could put a gun to John’s head and he wouldn’t say it.

  
“No, I’m serious; promise me you’ll at least try?”

  
Oh god, he’d better not be fancying himself a matchmaker. But he does have a point, and it’s not as if Sherlock has a great deal to lose at this stage. He shrugs.

  
“I’ll think about it.”

  
Victor grins at his victory and sidles up to him suggestively, mouthing at the underside of his jaw.

  
“Now that’s sorted,” he laps at Sherlock’s throat and he supresses a groan as Victor’s hand travels downward, “Once more for old times?”

  
“Oh god yes,” he breathes.

   
~

   
In the morning they rise early, Victor packs his things as Sherlock watches; subdued. He’s not especially sad that Victor’s leaving but he strongly suspects that he will not see him again. Sherlock’s going to miss him.

Turns out; Victor wasn’t going to cause a problem at all, and Sherlock almost regrets it.

  
He follows him out to the door and they embrace. Victor pulls back first, he gives Sherlock a sad smile and pulls his duffel over one shoulder.

  
“See ya round Will.”

  
“It’s Sherlock.” He reminds him, but he’s not cross.

  
“You’ll always be Will to me.”

  
He turns to go but there’s something going around and around in Sherlock’s mind and he tugs on his lover’s shoulder;

  
_‘Do you love me Will?’_

__  
‘Can you even feel love at all?’  
  


He looks Victor right in the eye.

  
“I can. And yes, I believe that I did.”

  
He can tell Victor knows exactly what he means because his eyes are sad, and a little wet, but he’s smiling so sincerely.

   
~

   
John gets up about an hour after Victor leaves and has a shower. He comes into the living room where Sherlock is scrolling through the endless drivel in his inbox.

  
“Did I hear voices earlier?”

  
“Hmm, probably.”

  
“Who was it?” he asks curiously.

  
It’s none of John’s business, but he doesn’t mind.

  
“An old friend.”

  
John’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline at that and Sherlock can see that he’s dying to know, but he just shakes his head, doesn’t ask and goes to make tea instead.

  
They’re just in the living room quietly, John’s reading and Sherlock is aggressively replying to the idiots who insist on continuing to contact him. He’s amusing himself by seeing how he can make each one uniquely elaborate and insulting whilst conveying the exact same message; you’re boring, leave me alone.

  
John hasn’t explained why he’s here and Sherlock hasn’t asked, he’s just enjoying the quiet domesticity, when John spots something on the coffee table.

  
“What’s this?”

  
It’s a book of published poetry, complete with glowing reviews and 4 star ratings printed out next to it. And damn it all to hell, the author is one Victor Trevor. It's brand new, sneaky sod had bought a copy of his own book specially to piss Sherlock off, and he is definitely going to burn it.

  
Sherlock groans when he realises what it is, because he just _knows_ ; half of it is going to be about him. John is bemused.

  
“Get rid of it, throw it out the window,” Sherlock grunts, but John doesn’t. Instead he opens it, “Oh for god’s sake, don’t read it, I’ll be sick.”

  
John surveys the first page in confusion and looks at Sherlock strangely.

  
“What?” He is going to regret asking that question, of that he’s sure.

  
“It has a dedication,” John informs him, and; Oh, Victor is going to pay for this, “It says; _My Dearest Holmes, every word is for you_.”

  
“I’ll kill him, I will kill him slowly and they’ll never find the body.”

  
He hasn’t heard John laugh like that in a very long time.

  
“So are you going to tell me what’s with the poetry?” John asks a little while later, “Because it’s quite good actually, very er…descriptive.”

  
Of course he went and bloody read it. Sherlock sighs.

  
“You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor…?”

 

  

 

He tells himself he’s going to throw the book out, but he never does.

 

 

 


End file.
